One needs a focus; a blog must have meaning; one can't just do it for fun.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Endless Summer with McGregor

Yesterday, I picked McGregor up at camp and when we got to my house we played Jeopardy for a while.

My questions for him, which he knew:

--This buzzer serves a queen (What is a bee?)--She's big and she hibernates (What is a bear?)--This ruler liked to build ships himself (Who is Peter the Great?)

His to me, which I didn't:

--This belt of asteroids is behind Pluto (What is the Kuiper Belt?)--This is the temperature of our Sun (What is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit?)--From this planet's atmosphere you can make batteries (What is a model consistent with data involving SO2 being oxidized to H2SO4 by NOx in the presence of H2O? ... Venus.) :-)

After Jeopardy, we played an endless game of war, then a long game of Go Fish, and then I taught him to play gin rummy. Important life skill, after astronomy. Right before McGregor's mom came to get him, we enjoyed a couple of TV innings between light-blue UNC and some orange-clad unknown college. The whole afternoon reminded me of being a kid again, on Countryside Lane in the suburbs: fooling around with friends playing Tripoli or Canasta; fixing lemonade and spilling it into the tape recorder; and just generally whiling away leisure time. It's a great way to be.